In Monday’s Blog we discussed the dark side of change. The change agent who comes into the organization with a wrecking ball and a take no prisoner’s attitude. This approach does not result in lasting or meaningful change, yet it persists.

There is a better and more lasting way to bring change into an organization or to accelerate a slow change process that may already be in place. This last point is important to understand because what looks like slow change to you, may in fact be rapid change to those involved in the change. It’s a matter of perspective.

So the first thing you must do when you come into an organization to affect change is – make no immediate changes. What is essential that you do is listen—and long enough and to enough people until you can accurately:

• Test and validate what you are there to do i.e.,
  • To grow the business
  • To turnaround a failing business
  • To realign the business
  • Understand the culture – how work is done and behaviors that run the place, including strong positive and/or negative group dynamics
  • Understand what’s working and what’s not working from a data and people perspective
  • Understand who the “A” players are

Unless the business is a “train wreck” (and very few are), taking the time to listen to understand will create the credibility you need to start taking action. Without credibility you cannot build allies (and you will need internal allies to affect change).

We often hear, “we don’t have time”, change must happen now and it must happen fast, so just do it… Well the truth is, change happens in an instant. You reorganize, you introduce a new process, you bring in new people. It all happens instantly. One moment it’s the old way; the next moment it’s the new way. What many miss is that although change happens instantly, transitions (that is, the employee’s adjustment to change) takes time. And it’s forgetting about the transitions and how to manage them that derails many change initiatives.

Before you embark on a change initiative and feel the Rambo approach is the most effective, stop and think about what you really want to accomplish, what you need to accomplish it, then gather support and move forward. And remember, it’s the transitions you’re managing.

Copyright 2011 Kubica and LaForest

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 at 4:12 am and is filed under Business Growth & Entrepreneurial Strategy, Leadership, Management & Management Transitions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.